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rendered voluntarily. As the Clove approached the treacherous waters around the
Celebes on 31 January 1613, Saris overtook two transport vessels en route from
Pattani, on the east side of the Malay Peninsula, to Ambon Island, to the east of
the Celebes. Boarding the smaller vessel, he 'fecht the Master aboard to direct me
through the straites'. He released him the next day to the larger vessel, rewarding
him with a length of calico for his services and handing the master of that vessel 'a
letter of favor to all English shipps he should meete withall'.
The dependence that European merchants had on Asian pilots could be a source
ofanxiety.InitsfirstyearsinthesewaterstheEICmostlyusedChinesepilots.This
was partly in recognition of the fact that Chinese dominated the trade around the
SouthChinaSea.Itwasalsoacalculatedpoliticalinvestment.Cocksrevealsthisin
alettertoaCompanycolleaguestationedinPattani,advisinghimto'useallChinas
kindly & w'th respeckt'. His advice was based on a single overriding premise: the
Company wanted access to China. The Company's entire strategy in Asia hinged
on it. Cocks did not want any Englishman to give any Chinese an excuse to reject
the Company's request for direct trade. As he whispered to his compatriot in Pat-
tani: 'I am certenly enformed that the Emperour of China hath sent spies into all
these partes of the world where the English, Dutch, Spaniardes & Portingales doe
trade to see their demeanors & how they behave themselves towardes the Chinas
nation.' The notion of a master espionage plan radiating from the court may be a
little far-fetched, but the endless difficulties Europeans faced trying to do business
with China, and not getting anywhere close to that ambition, fed such suspicions.
Cocks was desperate for a break-through on the China trade and didn't want any-
thingtospoilit.HewarnedthemaninPattaninottoleakthisstory,lesttheChinese
get wind that the English knew what they were up to. 'This I wrote you is no fable
but truth,' he declares at the end of his letter, 'yet keepe it to yourself.'
____________________
Pilots of the Ming dynasty have remained steadfastly anonymous. I have not
found a Chinese Francisco Gomes lurking in sources of the early seventeenth cen-
tury. What keeps them from our acquaintance is the secrecy with which Chinese
merchants surrounded their operations. Ship owners would have recorded pilots'
wages in account topics, but businesses were extremely careful not to allow their
topics to escape their control. A competitor could not be allowed to peer into the
state of a business's finances - even worse, a tax official. With only one excep-
tiontomyknowledge,therearenoaccountbooksofcommercialfirmsthatsurvive
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